iPad & iPhone tactile object recognition system bodes well for board games

The iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch are a hotbed of developer activity at the moment. Everyone wants a piece of the App Store pie, and we’ve already seen hundreds of thousands of apps become available, and a billion dollars in revenue distributed to developers.

The guys over at the Volumique blog have a different idea as to how to tackle apps for Apple’s devices, though. They aren’t just thinking about a digital activity on such devices, they are experimenting with using physical objects through Apple’s multi-touch screens.

Imagine being able to buy the playing pieces for a board game, but then loading up an app on your iPad for the actual board. The pieces would be recognized when placed on the iPad’s screen, it would even recognize which direction they were facing. This may sound like an impossible feat unless you use a much more expensive device like Microsoft Surface, but Bertrand Duplat and Etienne Mineur at Volumique already have it working.

At the moment they arem’t saying how they’ve managed to implement such a system, but the two videos uploaded to their blog clearly show it working. There’s no additional tech required, just an iPad and their app. For the experiments they are using standard board game play pieces and patterned paper.

The object recognition system also extends to the iPhone with an app called PAWN demonstrating how different play pieces are instantly recognized when placed on the screen. Again, there’s videos to prove the system works.

In fact, it looks as though we may get to play with this first on iPhone as PAWN is due for release in November.

This is a fantastic system being developed, but the one stumbling block may be Apple. Would they accept an app in the App Store that requires you to go out and buy physical objects in order to play? My guess would be that if some of the well-known board games used the tech, e.g. Monopoly and Trivial Pursuits, then Apple would take it seriously.

What you are effectively seeing here is a basic implementation of what Microsoft Surface can do, but without the high cost. It’s certainly going to be better on the larger screen of the iPad, but still usable on iPhone.

For developers, it could mean a brand new revenue stream through the sale of physical objects next to an app purchase. Whether they get the opportunity to use it depends on whether the designers decide to keep it to themselves or license it out to 3rd parties.

Speak Your Mind

DL

You asked if Apple would “accept an app in the App Store that requires you to go out and buy physical objects in order to play”. Ummm. Have a look at some of the remote control apps. They require you to go buy a $150.00 product that is wifi enabled in order for it to work correctly. I don’t think that is a “stumbling block” at all.

http://jahrends.com JAhrends

The stumbling block is in how faked this is. Lets all go out and fake up a product to drum up snooze…

Watch the vids. The end of the last vid the choice is selected before the piece touches the phone.

Sad…

http://jahrends.com JAhrends

Sorry the end of the first vid… you can see the selection on the right get selected before the piece is placed. I just don’t have much respect for this kind of story…

read PAWN as PWNED!

Tom Hammond

it’s not fake. It can only work for one object at a time though. It’s pretty simpe… there are two contact points on each object that simulate the touch of a finger. the distance between the points indicates the type of object. and the angle between the points indicates rotation of course ! But they can’t scale this up… from what I can tell, one object at a time is a hard limit. But this is a software limitation probably, not a hardware limitation.

Dudley

To second DL’s comment on “Would they accept an app in the App Store that requires you to go out and buy physical objects in order to play”… I think the “App Store approval process / closed” hysteria has people making odd comments. Let’s put this out there. Apple opened up a special part of the App Store for the accessory market some time ago. The idea would be that you could plug the iPhone/iPodTouch/iPad into a 30-pin connector device, and the app would automatically launch, or the App Store would load up and offer to download the app to your device. Apple also demonstrated on stage how Bluetooth/WiFi health devices could be used with its 3.0 API to assist physicians. Recently, Apple opened things even further, to allow third-party accessories to connect to other third party accessories and interact with the first parties 30-pin connected custom app.

The only question is not the IF of the concept, but the HOW of whether a developer is encouraging consumers to do something bad or problematic to the device (for instance, what if the pieces used low-level magnetics to send directional indications to the touchscreen… magnets that cause long term problems). You could imagine Apple taking an interest in not having huge amounts of its customers encounter physical problems using an app Apple is allowing in its store.

AR.Drone is another popular example of an app working with a third party device.

Dudley

@Tom

If its indeed 2 points and not three, I would imagine the hard limit would be at least 5 objects on the screen at once. Apple’s hardware is pretty top rate as far as multitouch goes. Other devices tend not to fair so well detecting multiple simultaneous finger-presses. I’ve tested with 10 fingers even through mobile Safari and its been very accurate.

Adam

Someone explain why the pieces are attached to the top of button cell batteries? Does placing a button cell battery on the capacitance screen cause a field that can be detected?

L.W. Brown

“Does placing a button cell battery on the capacitance screen cause a field that can be detected?”
Yes, and is the basis for some home-brew “stylii”…

Johny

You know I also Like board game, but on Board )) but I’m using iphone to calc everything, last days found some nice App http://apps.isimpleness.com/addscore What do you think guys ?